Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-224).

Inaug.-diss.--Greifswald. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. 92-95.

Zugl.: Berlin, Univ. der Künste, Diss., 2007

Inaugural-Dissertation-Erlangen. / Cover title. "Lebenslauf": p. [71]. "Literatur": p. 69.

Magister Artium - MA / This thesis is an exploration and analysis of the ways in which we might use varying forms of Black thought, theory, and art to think Blackness anew. For this purpose I work with electronic music from Nigeria and Detroit between 1976 and 1993, as well as with works of science fiction by W.E.B. Du Bois, Samuel Delany, Ralph Ellison, and Octavia Butler. Through a conceptual framework provided by theorists such as Fred Moten and Kodwo Eshun and the philosophical work of Afrofuturists like Delany, Ellison, Butler, and Du Bois, I explore the outer limits of what is possible when doing away with a canon of philosophy that predetermines our thinking of Blackness. This exploration also takes me to the possible depths of what this disavowal of a canon might mean and how we work with sound, the aural, and the sonic in rethinking the figuring of Blackness. This thesis is also be woven together by the theory of the Black Radical Tradition – following Cedric Robinson and Fred Moten specifically. At the centre of this thesis, and radiating outwards, is the assertion that a set of texts developed for a University of the West – Occidental philosophy as I refer to it in the thesis – is wholly insufficient in attempting to become attuned to the possibilities of Blackness. The thesis, finally, is a critique of ethnomusicology and its necessity for a native object, as well as sound studies, which fails to conceptualise any semblance of Black noise.

No description available.

This thesis explores the limitations of determinism in regards to music, media, and the constitution of subjectivity. Its methodological resource is derived from a synthesis between media ecology, social psychoanalysis, and music semiotics. The case studies describe the incorporation of nostalgia into popular music ballads, the domestication of the phonograph, the contemporary trend of mashups, and the studio technique of backmasking. The conclusion asks that we readjust our approach to music, media, and subjectivity to account for the possibility of creative acts that are bound within a network of determinants. I use, finally, the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to explore the body as a primary site of indeterminate mediation, which renders possible for the subject a potential of creative embodied expression.

This thesis explores the limitations of determinism in regards to music, media, and the constitution of subjectivity. Its methodological resource is derived from a synthesis between media ecology, social psychoanalysis, and music semiotics. The case studies describe the incorporation of nostalgia into popular music ballads, the domestication of the phonograph, the contemporary trend of mashups, and the studio technique of backmasking. The conclusion asks that we readjust our approach to music, media, and subjectivity to account for the possibility of creative acts that are bound within a network of determinants. I use, finally, the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to explore the body as a primary site of indeterminate mediation, which renders possible for the subject a potential of creative embodied expression.

La plupart des études menées sur la dimension scénique du théâtre français et européen pour la période couvrant la fin du XIXe siècle et le début du XXe siècle portent sur la scénographie (espace, décor, éclairage, liens avec la peinture et le nouveau média cinématographique). Si les éléments sonores sont souvent mentionnés et parfois analysés, c’est de façon compartimentée, selon des catégories (voix – déclamation et diction–, musique, bruitage) qui ne sont pas réinterrogées. La dimension acoustique en tant que telle n’est pas problématisée. Or, l’art du théâtre se fonde sur un dispositif où l’écoute importe autant que la vue, la première pouvant l’emportant sur la seconde, et la période étudiée constitue dans l’histoire du son un moment-charnière, avec l’apparition groupée du téléphone, du phonographe et du microphone (1875-1878), les progrès de l’acoustique scientifique et de l’otologie, la transformation des pratiques de l’écoute. Les raisons de l’oubli du sonore sont complexes : la prééminence accordée à la vision dans la pensée occidentale, l’invention de la « mise en scène », la résistance du théâtre aux nouvelles technologies sonores. Nourrie de l’apport des Sound Studies, la thèse remet le son dans le jeu : après avoir dressé un panorama de la pensée et du paysage sonore intermédial à la fin du XIXe siècle (théâtrophone, enregistrements d’acteurs, etc.), elle observe les effets plus profonds du « tournant acoustique » sur l’espace dramatique, sur la figure scénique, sur la vocalité, respectivement étudiés à travers les pratiques de trois poètes-hommes de théâtre : Maeterlinck, Jarry, Charles Cros. Ce sont les bases du théâtre qui ont été interrogées. / The majority of studies on scenic dimensions of late 19th - early 20th century French and European theatre center on scenography (space, scenery, lights, relations to painting and new cinematographic media). If certain aspects of sound are mentioned, and sometimes analyzed, the approaches are often compartmentalized into categories including voice (declamation, music, sound effects, which are never themselves questioned). The acoustical dimension is never fully problematized. However, the art of theatre is founded on a schema where listening matters as much as seeing, if not more. In the history of sound, the period on which this study comports constitutes an important turning point, with the invention of the telephone, phonograph, and microphone (1875-1878), progress in the fields of acoustical science and otology, and the transformation of listening practices. The reasons for sound’s oversight are multiple, including the pre-eminence accorded to vision in Occidental thought, the invention of the “mise en scène”, theatre’s resistance to new sound technologies. Nourished by Sound Studies, this dissertation seeks to bring sound back into play. After presenting a panorama of the activities and thought emerging from the intermedial soundscape at the end of the 19th century (théâtrophone, actor’s recordings, etc), it observes the deeper effects of these acoustical phonomena on dramatic space, the scenic figure, and vocality through respective studies of three poets-theatre creators: Maurice Maeterlinck, Alfred Jarry and Charles Cros. The very bases of theatre are interrogated.

No description available.